The prosecuting lawyer persisted: did it not then remain only to ask what influence the Chamulas have undergone recently? He waited a few seconds for Padre Mandujano to speak Fernando Ulloa’s name, but the priest’s silence forced him to be more precise. Hadn’t an agronomic engineer been travelling through the region for several months? The prosecuting lawyer was relying on the testimony of that engineer’s former assistant, young Rubén Martínez, to prove that Ulloa did not confine himself to carrying out his assignment to survey the region, but also held public meetings at which he incited the Indians to commit acts of violence in order to reclaim their rights. “If the judge does not consider this evidence to be sufficient,” the lawyer concluded, with a bow in His Honor’s direction, “there are other proofs, definitive ones, that will demonstrate the engineer’s complicity with the Chamulas of Tzajal-hemel.”

Manuel Mandujano, who by his silence and reticence had managed, without compromising himself, to insure that the matter would continue in the direction that suited him, expressed his hope—standing up now—that the proofs which were being held in reserve by the accusing party were in fact as conclusive as the prosecutor had assured, because otherwise he was running the risk of committing the crimes of slander and defamation.

The final part of the proceedings consisted in bringing the witnesses face to face with the accused and questioning the latter. Catalina Díaz Puiljá was at the center of everyone’s attention and everyone was amazed that a woman so insignificant and abject could have inspired an eager and credulous multitude to follow her. This also served to strengthen the idea of a secret mastermind, who had only used the Indian woman as his instrument.

The confrontations with witnesses and the examination of the defendants were carried out through an interpreter who was, in the first place, unaware of the exact meaning of the legal terms used by the prosecutor, and, furthermore, did not take into account the level of understanding of the accused women, their mental habits, their complete ignorance of justice as it was conceived of and practiced by the Coletos, their natural timidity, and the terror they felt at having been entrapped by a mechanism as complex as it was implacable.

The outcome of this series of misunderstandings was that all of them pointed hysterically to Catalina as the responsible party. To Catalina who had lost her power and prestige, to Catalina who was nobody to the people of Ciudad Real. From then on the prosecutor addressed Catalina alone.